PLANO, Texas, February 19, 2013 – Tektronix Communications, the world’s first full-service Telecoms Intelligence Provider (TIP), has published an industry report, which identifies the key challenges, and opportunities, facing mobile operators ahead of this year’s Mobile World Congress. The opportunity for OTT Integration tops the list of five key industry issues revealed in TekComms’ 4D TIP Report that acknowledges the emergence of a new Telecoms Intelligence Provider category, which has a vital role to play in interpreting and monetising the data available to mobile operators.

The TekComms’ 4D TIP Report explores the industry from the perspective of the four dimensions covering a CSP’s entire environment: Subscriber behaviour, the Services they consume, the Network environment, and the Technologies they use. The report reveals the following emergent industry trends and makes a number of potentially transformational predictions in Telecoms for the year ahead and beyond:

Over the Top integration: Mobile operators have the opportunity to turn the tables on OTT providers by launching their own branded voice, messaging and video-calling services to rival the likes of Skype, Viber and WhatsApp. Expect the next generation of mobile services to include the features offered by OTT providers, but with enhanced functionality and improved performance. Operators will go one step further entering into joint ventures with OTT providers and in some cases acquiring OTT rivals.

RCS Compliance: The GSMA Rich Communication Services initiative (RCS) has experienced several false starts, but it has been bolstered recently by operator commitment to Joyn, the consumer facing brand of RCS. However, Joyn may not live up to its promise unless operators become more aggressive in their approach to marketing the service, and take full advantage of what it has to offer. RCS Compliance will ensure interoperability, enabling users to access IM, chat and text across any device or network, and give operators a real-time view of hundreds of millions of live conversations. RCS output will redefine ‘Big Data’ across networks as the carriers mine a constant stream of information, revealing subscriber location and behaviour.

Private Cloud: Operators will go head-to-head with cloud-based sync services like Google Drive, Dropbox and Mozy by offering a more robust proposition over mobile networks. Users will no longer have to depend on the ‘best-effort’ of the internet to access music files, video clips and other personal material, as operators will provide consumer and business-class sync services over their own dedicated cloud architecture. Business models will vary, but expect to see basic free services and additional bandwidth and security available at a premium.

The Strategy of Security: Security will become a key competitive advantage. The carriers’ robust network infrastructure provides a secure environment for wireless applications and will remove the associated risk of using OTT services that are subject to security breaches. It is expected that consumers will come to view their network operator as a far safer environment in which to transact than in the open, regulation-light world of the OTT player, making carriers the most natural place for sensitive data to be held and used. Mobile networks have robust security protocols in place to support hosted services; operator branded or with OTT partners.

Tier 2 4G Operators: LTE is no longer the domain of the Tier 1 carriers; the Tier 2 carriers are now set to enter the market with commercial 4G propositions that will challenge the dominance of the Tier 1 operators in their respective markets. The Tier 2 operators have adopted a simple KPI approach, customised to their specific business and performance goals to cover network, services and subscribers across LTE, 3G and legacy technologies.

Mr Lyn Cantor, CEO and President of Tektronix Communications explained: “The 4D TIP report highlights many of the emerging trends for this year that we have identified. Our new categorisation as a Telecoms Intelligence Provider marks our maturity as a leading player in enabling communication service providers to interpret, analyse and monetise network data, in all its forms. We are able to extract information historically, and in real-time, giving an unparalleled breadth and depth of insight into the subscriber’s behaviour, the services and applications they’re consuming, the performance of the network they’re using and the different technology standards it supports.

“The combination of ‘Big Data’ and the granular detail that we can provide has presented the carriers with more intelligence about their business, and their customers, than they have previously had access to. Operators are using this information to develop new business models rooted in security and quality of service. For this reason, the new category of Telecoms Intelligence Provider is appropriate as it defines our ability to collect, analyse and interpret customer data. That data is increasing. In 2012 we shipped over 17 Petabytes of data, which is one-fifth of Facebook’s stored data capacity.”

The TekComms’ 4D TIP Report focuses on the latest industry trends, providing a vision of the Telecoms space for 2013 and beyond and the emergence of the Telecoms Intelligence Provider, published by Tektronix Communications, will be available from Monday, 25th February 2013.

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About Tektronix Communications

Tektronix Communications is uniquely positioned as the communications industry’s first Telecommunications Intelligence Provider (TIP) offering both service assurance and monitoring and network intelligence solutions that uniquely cover all four dimensions of the service provider’s environment: subscriber behavior, the services and applications they consume, the network environments they occupy and the technologies that enable them. Tektronix Communication’s comprehensive set of assurance, intelligence and test solutions and services support a range of architectures and applications such as LTE, HSPA, 3G, IMS, mobile broadband, VoIP, video and triple play. Tektronix Communications is headquartered in Plano, Texas. Visit us online at www.tekcomms.com.

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